Betrayed and Reborn

“Lavina, stop being so selfish! We all know Stephanie is ill and has only a few years left to live. She needs more protection than you do.”

I was strapped to a wooden chair by my own sister and the man I called my husband. Alex was supposed to protect me from the blizzard, but instead, he was the same person who had tied me up and left me pregnant, bleeding, and alone to die.

***

“Dress up. You're coming with me to the mall. The weather is getting bad, and we need to get thick clothes, food, and medicine for the coming blizzard. We need enough supplies before it strikes,” Alex said.

My eyes widened because I knew he had never taken me anywhere in our three years of marriage. It was a hidden marriage, though, yet I had sacrificed every single day to make him happy.

“I... I'm not feeling well, Alex. Can you go alone and get them? Also, get thick sweaters for me,” I replied, holding my abdomen.

For weeks, I had complained about cramps and begged Alex to take me to the hospital, yet he refused. He said it would cost him money and that he couldn't spend money on a wife who wasn't helpful to him.

The cramps had started when I began taking that medicine three years ago. Frank, our family doctor, always confirmed that I wasn't sick and most times called it “food poisoning.”

I watched Stephanie, my supposed sister, rush through the door with a pitiful expression. “Alex, please, don't you see she's unwell? We can go together if you don't mind.”

There it was again, her pretending to be the kind, sweet sister while making me look like the devil.

“She has to come herself,” Alex groaned, his voice completely stripped of warmth.

I looked up at him through blurred eyes, my hand still pressed tightly against the sharp, stabbing cramps in my lower belly.

For an entire week, I had begged him on my knees to take me to a clinic. I had cried until my throat felt dry, telling him something inside me felt terribly wrong, but he had snapped that I was just being dramatic, wasting his hard-earned money when I brought nothing to the table.

“Please, Alex...” I rasped, my fingers clutching his coat sleeve. “Just let me rest. Just for today.”

“Get up, Lavina. Drop the act,” he ordered, shoving my hand away like I was a piece of trash.

“Stephanie needs winter gear and medical supplies to survive this freak storm, and the warehouse on the outskirts has the last shipment. You are coming to carry the heavy crates. Stop playing the victim.”

Stephanie stood behind him, her delicate face twisted into a pitiful mask for Alex, but when he turned his back to grab his keys, her eyes met mine with a chilling, triumphant glint.

I didn't know it was a trap. I thought that if I obeyed just one last time, if I proved my worth, Alex would finally take me to a doctor afterward.

Instead, they drove me to an abandoned, windowless warehouse on the edge of the city. The moment the heavy metal doors slammed shut, the illusion vanished. They didn't want me to carry crates. They wanted me gone.

Before I could even process what was happening, Alex forced me down onto a cold wooden chair, wrapping thick nylon ropes around my torso and wrists until they bit deep into my skin. Heavy duct tape was slapped hard over my mouth, suffocating my desperate screams into muffled sobs.

Stephanie stepped closer, leaning in with a smile that sent ice straight through my veins. “You really thought he cared about you, Lavina? You're just a countryside stray. An eyesore.”

Without warning, Stephanie raised her foot and kicked me hard in the center of my stomach.

A blinding agony tore through my lower abdomen. I gasped against the tape, my body shaking as pain spread through me. Then I felt the warmth of blood running between my thighs. My eyes widened as I stared down at it, unable to believe what was happening.

I struggled violently against the ropes, tears burning my cheeks as I tried to scream through the tape. My eyes found Alex, silently begging him to look at the blood, to see that something was terribly wrong, and to remember that I was his wife.

Surely, he wouldn't leave me like this. Surely, he would help me.

Alex didn't even flinch. He adjusted his scarf and walked toward the exit without giving me a second glance.

“Stephanie needs all the care she can get, as well as the medicine. You can stay here and reflect on your selfishness.”

I stared at him in disbelief, my tears falling faster as he walked away. Even after everything I had endured for him, he could still leave me to die without a second thought.

They locked the heavy iron doors, leaving me in total darkness.

For four excruciating days, I remained tied to that chair, bleeding and growing weaker as the temperature outside plummeted. The cold crept through the warehouse walls, biting into my exposed skin until my fingers turned black and numb. I could barely move, and each breath became harder than the last.

My baby was gone, my body was broken, and the man I had loved had abandoned me to die. I waited for someone to come, even when I knew deep down that nobody was coming.

“If I get a second chance in life, I swear I'll make sure you don't get away with this.”

The last thing I saw before everything went dark was a large hoarding vault and bloodline awakening that flashed before my eyes.

 It was already too late.

Then everything went blank.

***

My eyes snapped open.

A harsh, desperate breath tore from my throat as I sat bolt upright, my hands flying to my stomach.

No blood. 

No ropes. 

No suffocating tape.

I was sitting in my small, cramped room at the Hamilton villa, sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains and warmth washing over my trembling skin. I lifted my hands, staring at my unblemished wrists, completely free of rope burns.

My memory was intact. Every cruel word, every moment of betrayal, and every drop of blood I had lost before my death remained clear in my mind.

I turned my head slowly toward the digital clock on my nightstand, the glowing numbers burning into my eyes.

Sixty days before the global cataclysm.

Sixty days before the world turned into a frozen, lawless graveyard. Sixty days before humanity began destroying itself for a single piece of dry bread and medicine.

I let out a slow breath, the phantom chill of death still clinging to my bones as something stirred deep inside me.

My royal bloodline, the dormant realm tethered directly to my soul, awakened in response to my return to life. 

An endless, time-frozen vault opened inside my mind, ready to hold everything I would need to survive the coming apocalypse.

I was reborn.

And this time, I would never beg, never bleed, and never suffer for monsters again.

My phone on the nightstand lit up with a notification, the screen flashing a news alert from the Winslet family business account:

[Winslet Group announces the formal betrothal contract: Stephanie Winslet to marry Damien Stone, heir to Stone Corporation, exactly seven days from today.]

A cold, humorless smile touched my lips as I stared at the headline.

In my past life, Stephanie had never wanted to marry the most feared Stone heir. Instead, she had clung to my Alex.

This time, I would take them all by surprise.

Seven days.

The Stone family heir was a man rumored to be on his deathbed, a terrifying recluse who held the keys to unmatched military and industrial wealth.

The Winslets were desperate to sacrifice Stephanie to save their failing empire, but Stephanie was terrified of marrying a dying man.

They wanted a sacrifice? They were about to get one.

I stood up, the pain of my past life settling into a cold, unshakable resolve. I had exactly seven days to steal Stephanie's place, marry the Stone heir, and use his family's resources to fill my soul vault before the world froze to death.